Creating an effective customer newsletters can be a real headache. Many times you start out with the best of intentions and all too quickly your customer newsletter falls by the wayside.
After a couple of issues you find yourself pressed for time and tempted to skip an issue and then you are on a slippery slope. The most important to remember about a newsletter is:
Frequency Trumps Everything
In the world of customer newsletters, being on time every time is more important than anything else. The odd typo, a little bit of content that you are unhappy with can be sent. Getting it right isn’t as important as getting out your newsletter on time.
You want your newsletter to be seen as
- A regular publication – Magazines don’t skip a month. Neither should you
- Information not advertising. Magazines come out every month and contain information. Your newsletter comes out every month with useful information (for the recipient) and isn’t just a shameless sales pitch
Make the Your Customer Newsletter About the reader
When deciding what to write about, you need to make your content relevant to the reader. This does not mean all your newsletter content should be about your company, your products and your services.
I interviewed Michael McLean recently about his Insurance Brokerage’s customer newsletter. He delightfully told me told me he had extended his customer’s loyalty to three times the industry average, and the main reason was his printed monthly customer newsletter and it contained almost nothing about insurance (less than 25% of the content was about insurance). It was all about what his readers might find interesting, relevant and useful.
Keep it short
Everybody is busy these days. Your newsletter should pass the 10 minute rule. If they can’t read it in less than 10 minutes it is too long. Go for either 2 or 4 pages for your customer newsletter and send it monthly rather than 8 or 12 pages quarterly or bimonthly.